The present invention relates to content provided in a networked environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to delivery of information relating to content provided in a networked environment.
When a page in a networked environment (e.g., a news article accessed using the Internet) is viewed by a reader, the page can include terms or concepts that are unknown to the reader. The reader may look-up one or more of these terms or concepts to improve comprehension of the page. For example, the reader may look-up a person's name to find out who the person is, or look-up a geographical region mentioned in the page to visually see the region located in a map.
To improve comprehension of the page, the page may include embedded links. The page is presented to the reader with at least a portion of the text of the page pre-configured as embedded links. The reader clicks on the embedded links to go to a related page or to initiate a keyword search based on the specified terms. For example, Yahoo's Y!Q permits contextual searching of pre-selected phrases in a page or of any phrase in a page. Pre-selected phrases in a page, referred to as highlighted LiveWord phrases, may be provided in a news article and have an icon next to each of the pre-selected phrases. When a person clicks on an icon, a contextual search occurs to provide web and news search results related to that pre-selected phrase. Alternatively, if the person's browser is configured with a Y!Q toolbar, then the person can highlight any phrase of any web page and a LiveWord icon will appear. Clicking on this icon will again initiate a contextual search of the highlighted phrase. In the case of pages pre-configured with embedded links, a single person (e.g., an editor) or a computer selects the terms that are likely to be unknown, confusing, or otherwise most suitable for additional exploration.
Unfortunately, pre-selected terms may not be the same terms that actual readers of the page may be confused about or would like to further explore. This may be due to the person or computer selecting the pre-selected terms not being a representative reader of the page. The pre-selected terms may represent an official view or a particular social/political/ideological view. Thus, when actual readers view the page, they may not find the embedded links to be useful. Instead, the actual readers may look-up other terms in the page. The same terms in the page may be looked-up repeatedly, once by each of a plurality of readers of the page.
Thus, it would be beneficial for a page provided in a networked environment to automatically provide additional information pertaining to terms or concepts within the page likely to be unknown or of further interest to readers. It would be beneficial for the automatically provided additional information to dynamically change over time in response to readers' indications of interest. It would be beneficial for content available to a plurality of persons to include information that would improve comprehension and usefulness of the content. It would be beneficial for human editor-designated related information in a page to be supplemented by community based related information, the community based related information reflecting the interests of actual readers of the page.